Skylights
by roberre
Summary: Belle French is the first person in two years who's cared enough to help him, even if she is overly exuberant and rather confident in her business suggestions. She is also the first person in two years who picks the burgundy blouse off the rack, and the first one ever to slam it down on the counter and whip out a credit card like she dares him to refuse her.


Although the sign on the bus informs its passengers that it is "equipped with a hydraulic lift, for your convenience!" (for the convenience of people in wheelchairs and the elderly and cripples like him), Nick Gold has been around town long enough to know that bus drivers typically don't notice him. Until he holds up the line by waiting for the bus to lower—and then they notice him.

It's a simple fact. He harbours no resentment.

But it means that, without fail, he braces his knee for impact, steps onto the pavement the moment the door opens, and tries to hobble out of the way before a swarm of jostling passengers file out of the bus.

Today the jostling passengers are school teachers late for work and students late for class (too cool for the yellow school bus but too poor for their own cars), lunch ladies and TAs and hall pass monitors and custodians and a mob of the usual educational workers. They check their watches as the bus inches its way towards the high-school. Teenagers are the worst culprits by far, (and already they press against his back and chatter about mundane video games and movies he's never heard of), so he holds tight to his cane, to the paper bag in his hand, to the leather wrap-around sewing kit tucked under his elbow—and braces for the inevitable.

The inevitable arrives with a slow 'hiss' as the door opens, and then froths into a roar as his feet hit the pavement and people pile out around him, a mess of backs and shoulders (and hooded-sweatshirts that make all the students look like members of an identical zombie hoard). He spins around in the crowd, and his cane keeps him upright (but barely), and he holds the paper bag to his chest… but an ill-timed elbow bumps his arm and he loses his grip on his sewing kit. His livelihood. It hits the ground and the leather thong unravels, sends it rolling open across the pavement as people swear and grumble and hop out of the way to avoid projectile scissors and spools of thread and tiny needles.

The bus pulls away.

Adjusting his glasses, he surveys the damage.

His awl and hand-spindle, as well as his crochet needles and a box of pins, remain intact and inside the leather wrap. Everything else, despite the pockets and straps supposedly designed to keep them in place, lies scattered. With a sigh, he eases himself down onto his hands and knees.

He's gathered two pairs of scissors, a fabric pencil, and some of his larger gauge needles when the sound of brisk walking (the clipped 'click' of high-heels) interrupts his search. A quick glance up reveals a woman in a yellow blouse and a grey skirt, nose in a book, and he tucks his head back down and prays she doesn't step on anything too sharp.

A gentle 'klink' of metal against concrete, and one of his needles skitters across the sidewalk.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry," the woman says in a rush. "Is that yours? I didn't even see you." She puts a hand to her forehead and sighs. "I really am sorry," she says again.

"It's fine," he says, shaking his head. "It's my fault." He presses a hand to his chest before plucking the needle from the ground. He wipes it clean on his cardigan and tucks it back into the kit.

"Let me help you," she says.

Tucking her book under her elbow (Gold catches a glimpse of the spine, which reads: Catcher in the Rye), the woman lowers herself onto her knees with an unexpected grace and begins to pluck needles from the sandy concrete. She divides her attention between the ground and his face, and he wishes he'd had time to shave over the last few days. (Then again, he hasn't been out of his shop over the last few days, so he's hardly needed to look presentable. A nicer shirt and a pair of jeans without patches wouldn't have done him any harm, either.)

"It's—uh—it's a good thing we don't have any haystacks here, then."

He looks over at her, brows furrowing. "Why would we?"

She narrows her eyes and tilts her head, but her smile is more pleasant than condescending. "It—was a joke? Needles? Haystacks?"

"Ah," he says, and chuckles a little for courtesy's sake. "Of course." He can't quite smother the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"Do I… know you?" she asks. "Have we met before?"

He shakes his head. He doesn't interact much with women… with anyone, really. And he wouldn't forget a face like hers. Or eyes like hers. (Cerulean blue.) Or a voice like hers, soft and musical and rounded with an Aussie accent.

"You're sure?"

He nods.

"Positive? Have I seen you around anywhere?"

"I have a shop in town," he says. "But I doubt you've been in."

She looks at the bag lunch he'd set down beside his cane. "You're a parent, then?"

He nods. "It's only the second day and the boyo's already forgetting his lunch." He gives a little shrug and begins rolling up his kit. He's lost some needles, but the shop's due to be open soon and a few dollars of needles aren't worth the ache in his knee, or the fluttering in his chest. (He wants to be tucked away, out of sight, before he goes and makes a fool of himself further.) "He'll hate me for bringing it, but a boy has to eat."

And they don't have the money to go buying cafeteria food—but Nick isn't about to tell her that.

"Tell me his name," she says. "Maybe I can bring it to him."

"Branden," he says. (Baelfire—but that was a long, long time ago. A few hundred years have all but erased the name from his memory.) "Branden Gold."

"Ahhhh, I knew I recognized you somehow." The woman smiles and reaches out a hand. Four needles lay in her palm. Gold carefully plucks them between his forefingers and his thumb. "I'm his English teacher," the woman continues. "He looks just like you."

Gold hastily shoves his needles into his case and winds the leather thong around it. "He takes more after his mother, I should think," he mumbles.

Ignoring his statement completely (like, but un-like everyone else), the woman holds her hand out. "I'm Isabelle French," she says. "Miss French to the kids, but you can call me Belle."

"Nice to meet you, Miss French," he says, tentatively taking her hand. "Nicholas Gold."

He reaches over to his cane and pulls it, and the bag lunch, close. He gets to his feet with some difficulty, and holds the lunch tight. (It's just a bagel and some yogurt. But it's a damned sight better than air, which is what Bae will be eating if the bag doesn't make it inside.)

Miss French brushes off her skirt and then holds out her hand.

"You're sure about this?" Gold asks. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all. It'd be my pleasure."

Gold's mouth twitches up into a tiny smile, though he keeps his eyes rooted to the bag as he hands it across to Miss French.

"He's a good kid," Miss French says.

"He is at that," Gold says.

"Not as shy as his papa, though," she says, with a teasing smile.

Gold opens his mouth, but Miss French shoots him a wink and a tiny wave. Gold doesn't own a watch, but the bell on the clocktower saves him from the embarrassment of staring at an empty wrist for an excuse to escape.

"Pardon me, I'm late for work."

"And I'm late for class," she says. "But I expect I'll see you soon."

He clutches his belongings tight, and limps from the school to his dark, out-of-the way tailor's shop in record time.

xxxx

He sits in the corner under a lamp and stitches. He doesn't need to—not really. He hasn't sold anything in weeks. But there's nothing else to do for long, endless days while Bae's in school. He certainly doesn't have the money to drink, which seems to be the popular hobby of the out-of-work crowd. He certainly doesn't have any friends, which seems to be the popular hobby of everyone else.

And so he sews.

Sometimes he sews patches on worn-down clothes from his closet. Sometimes he performs alterations on the clothes that wait in the window. Sometimes he experiments, with leathers for belts, or boots. Once, he tried making a hat. Occasionally he crochets, blankets or scarves—or recently, tiny figurines of flowers or animals for the keychain basket beside the cash register. Keychains for two dollars apiece. Only ever earned him two dollars in total. (Big sellers.)

He sits and he sews, and, when the bell tower chimes four o'clock, he stands to close.

Except that his door opens, and the doorbell jingles, and Miss Belle French the English Teacher walks into his shop wearing blue and white and a pair of oversized sunglasses.

She pulls the sunglasses off and peers around the dim interior of the shop. "You know," she says, and he can see her eyes wandering over the honey-coloured wood and stainless steel clothes racks, the bland and unimpressive display of masterful craftsmanship, "for a man who owns a shop you're surprisingly hard to find."

"It's a bit out of the way," he says, standing and moving from the workbench to the counter.

"The location is fine. But you need a bigger sign, or something, because I walked past this place twice. I didn't even know you were open."

He blinks. She's blunt. And he has no idea why she's here.

Managing to work moisture back into his mouth, Gold regains control of his manners. "Can I… help you with something?"

She takes a step up to the counter he stands (hides) behind, and reaches for a handkerchief in her purse. After placing it on the counter, she unfolds it delicately. A single sewing needle rests inside. "You forgot this."

"And so… you came all the way here to return it?"

"If you don't want it," she says, peering at him in a narrowed-eye almost-smiling way (that makes him think she's teasing him), "I can take it back."

He lifts it carefully from the handkerchief and holds it pinched between his fingers. "Thank you," he says, sticks it in the nearest pincushion. "Now, if that's all—"

"So you're a tailor, huh?"

"In theory." Practicing tailors actually make money.

She looks to the suits clothing the mannequins in the window, the pants and jackets and dresses hanging from racks, the workbench and the multitude of sewing books on shelves against the far wall. "It looks like more than theory to me. Do you mind if I take a look?"

Yes, he does. But he smiles and shakes his head (and Bae is likely at home by now, slinging his backpack against the wall and crossing the tiny apartment to the cupboards in hope of food). "Of course not," he says. "Be my guest."

It seems as though she takes a hundred years (which isn't an outrageous thing to think, for a man who once spent a hundred years weaving a tapestry while his son was out on some ridiculous adventure through the Neverland) to browse, but when she finishes meandering through the shop, she bites her lip.

"Is it that bad?" he asks.

"It's that good," she says. "These are beautiful. Every single piece." She walks up to a burgundy silk blouse hanging from a rack and runs her fingers down the sleeve. "You should be charging double what you are."

He shrugs. "I just want them sold."

"You're selling yourself short."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew how long they've been hanging there," he says.

"A new sign," she says. "I'm telling you, it'll do wonders." She begins to walk around, examining walls and windows and—oddly—the ceiling. "More light wouldn't hurt, either. Have you considered putting in a skylight?"

He really does need to get home. "No, I haven't, actually—"

"If you put one there, and maybe a second one there," she gestures vaguely to the ceiling, "you'd have light all day long. I bet it would save you a fortune on electricity."

"Thank you very much, I'll consider it."

"It will attract more customers."

"Thank you, I said I'd consider it."

She tilts her head and stares at him. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"No. Not—not like that." He gestures at an antiquated clock hanging from the wall. "But I'm closing."

"Now?"

He nods.

She stares intently at him. He can feel her eyes raking his checkered button-up shirt, over his grizzled face, fixing on his eyes behind his glasses. "Can I ask you a question?"

He doesn't have much of a choice but to say, "If you wish."

"Why are you closing so early? Most people don't get off work for another hour."

It's technically none of her business—at all, really. And perhaps times are hard, but they won't always be. And maybe he isn't the best businessman (maybe he's not used to a world where clothes are a luxury and wool is no longer an essential service), but they're making ends meet—sometimes. Barely.

He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and says, "I need to be home with my boy."

"He's what—fifteen?"

Gold lost track somewhere around two hundred and five, so he nods.

"He can probably take care of himself," Miss French says, not unkindly. With that little smile at the corner of her mouth again.

"I know he can," Gold says. "It's just…"

It's just penance, if he's honest. And cowardice.

Two years of life in 'idyllic Storybrooke' hasn't yet erased decades of pain. Centuries of displacement. All his years of wrongs. He tries to be there for Bae, but he's afraid one day he might come home and Bae won't be there for him. (He takes after his mother, after all.) It's taken them years to grow comfortable with one another, to smile and laugh and eat dinner together— but Milah is still dead, and Bae still knows why, and Gold isn't sure how many years it will take to erase the memory of a sneering, giggling imp from his son's mind.

To erase the image of a monster from the face of a coward.

"Well, maybe you should get him to help you around here." Miss French is an unstoppable force, apparently, and continues on undeterred. "Or just have him do his homework in the back, if you're worried about him. That way you can still be together."

He just stares at her.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life—"

He blinks and squashes the urge to laugh.

"—but, my father had to work too, when I was growing up. And I loved helping him around the shop. Spending time with him. Maybe Branden will too?"

He wants to snap. He wants to hide. He wants to usher her out of his shop and tell her to leave him alone, he wants to yell and fade back into the wall—but he wants to be a better man, too. For himself, and for his son.

And this woman is the first person in two years who's cared enough to help him, even if she is overly exuberant and rather confident in her business suggestions. (Even if she stares at him like she's curious and terrified at the same time, like she's worried she's upset him. Like she's sorry she's come.) And this woman is the first person in two years who picks the burgundy blouse off the rack, and the first one ever to slam it down on the counter and whip out a credit card like she dares him to refuse her.

And so he smiles, and it feels almost natural, and he runs the card through a machine he's never had to use—and he sees a number representing a week's worth of groceries flick up on the cash register's display.

He slides the blouse into a black paper bag (scrawled with 'Gold', with little pieces of gold rope for handles, back when he still expected to make a living at this business) and drops the receipt inside. (His smile comes a little easier now, he finds.)

"Can I offer one more suggestion?" Miss French asks, taking the bag from him and letting it hang by her side.

She bought a blouse, and he's already late to meet Bae, so he shrugs.

"If you're selling something, you want people to notice you."

He nods. A valid point.

"Right now they don't."

She's a regular sleuth. Perhaps the English teacher missed her true calling as a consulting detective.

She points to one of the suits in the window, a deep navy with pinstripes so subtlety turquoise they look grey. "One day soon," she says, "try wearing one of those down the street." She glances between the suit and his body, comparing and sizing, (and he really wishes he'd bothered to shave). "You might find you don't need a new sign after all."

He flicks his gaze down to his chequered shirt, to the pinstripe suit… remembers velvet robes and high collars and feline grace. A hazy memory. Another life. (Another man, perhaps.)

He scratches at his jaw and purses his lips.

She slides her sunglasses back on, pushing them up her nose with a daintily manicured finger. "Are you open Mondays, Mister Gold?"

"Aye," he says.

"I will see you," she flashes a smile, "on Monday." She makes it to the door and pulls it open, but stop in the doorframe, surrounded by a pool of light. "Don't close before I get here. The school has a list of mailing addresses for all the students and I will show up at your house."

He's not sure if her threat is entirely legal, but he believes her implicitly.

xxxx

He waits for her on Monday (in a clean purple shirt, unshaven but trimmed, because Bae insisted the stubble made him look rugged), and she does not disappoint.

The clock strikes four, and his little doorbell jingles, and Miss French walks into his shop with a smile and a wave. (She's wearing a cream skirt with a black belt and the burgundy blouse, and thank-the-gods it fits her perfectly.)

"Looks like I don't have to hunt you down after all," she says.

He spreads his hands, and the new shirt does wonders for his confidence, (even if he stole it from one of the manikins and left it bare-chested in the back store-room). "Looks that way," he says. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, first of all, I feel like I should apologize for barging in on you like I did. I—uh—get a little intense sometimes. And when I came in and saw all these beautiful clothes and no one wearing them…" She trails off and stares at the ground a moment. "Well, I'm sorry."

He smiles and flicks his fingers in an almost-shrug. "No matter."

She smiles back.

He takes off his glasses and polishes them with a dust cloth he keeps under the counter. "Is there a 'second of all', by any chance?"

Her smile expands into a grin. She pulls a slip of paper from a pocket in her skirt and slides it over the counter. The slip of paper is actually two sheets, folded together. When he unfolds it, he sees a list of fabrics, colours, and measurements. The second sheet contains a rough sketch of a dress. Open back, square-cut front, knee-length and textured and snug in all the places that matter. An evening dress. Not an English teacher kind of dress.

"Make it for me," she says.

He runs his fingers down the design, runs his eyes down her body (and she stands straighter under his scrutiny), and double checks her measurements on the paper. In his mind, he's already measuring, cutting, draping, stitching, running his hand over textures and colours and yards of fabric he keeps in the back of the shop for just such an occasion. (An occasion that has never arisen until now.)

"If I like it," Miss French is saying, and it takes a concerted effort to leave his imaginary work behind and concentrate on her words, "I can guarantee you a clientele." She reaches over the counter to tap the paper. "I wear this to the next school dance, and you'll have thirty teenaged girls breaking down your door to get at those prom dresses."

"You mean the prom dresses I made a year and a half ago? Out of style and out of sight?"

She smiles at him, a glint in her eye like she's planning a bank heist. "Good taste never goes out of style, Mister Gold. Trust me on this."

He taps a finger on the counter.

"Can you do it?" she asks.

"Of course I can do it."

"Will you?"

He glances between her and the paper. The measurements and the woman.

She's a perfect billboard. She's beautiful, and animated, and if she's wearing a dress made by his hands, she'll be the talk of the town for months. She's spunky and she's smart and she knows what she's talking about, and she has impeccable good taste.

But he hesitates. Because he knows he can't afford to be proud—but something long dormant stirs in his spirit. Something that remembers humiliation—and triumph. Something that remembers the taste of leather boots, and the intoxicating thrill of magic. Something foolish and desperate and bitter that makes him slide the paper back to her. He sets his jaw and takes a breath, brows furrowed. "I don't need your pity," he says, "if that's what this is about."

Her brows crease and he sees a flash of pain in her blue eyes, a flash of quick-cut indignation and bafflement. "No," she says. She sounds disgusted. (Maybe she should be.) "I'm here because I want a dress."

She sounds so incredulous. So offended. She must be telling the truth.

Relief washes over him, as welcome as sleep after a fight, or rain following a long drought. He smiles and tries to infuse all the apologies he can into a single expression. It's a business arrangement, nothing more. A deal. (And she must know his weakness, because to him the sound of a deal is as tantalizing as siren song.)

"I'm sorry," he says, "I just thought…"

"If I wanted a charity, Mister Gold, I'd go to the soup kitchen." He winces under the sharpness of her voice, but after a moment, her expression softens. "Will you make my dress or not?"

"Of course," he says. "It would be my absolute pleasure." He pulls a pencil from the drawer under the counter and begins to scribble notes on the corner of the page. 'Flashes of indigo silk shining through the black—the night sky after a storm—silver jacket, three quarter sleeves.' He pulls a business card from his pocket and scrawls '4:30 PM, Tuesday 15th" on the back of it. "Come in next week after school for the first fitting."

She plucks the card from his fingers and examines it, before tucking it guilelessly into her bra. "Tuesday sounds lovely."

"Lovely," he repeats, but his mind is wandering again. Racing at the thought of work. Of finally having a purpose. Of the first glimmer of light in a life that has seemed swathed in darkness for too many years.

The first hope. For him. For Bae. For them.

Miss French nearly gone before he realizes she's moved.

"Miss French, wait—"

She stops.

He reaches around to the front of the cash register, and dips his hand into the wicker basket containing his tiny crocheted keychains. Flowers. Animals. Miniature-scale winter hats and mittens.

He lifts a rose, hooked around his pinky by its metal loop, and inclines his head in a bow. "If you'll have it," he says.

She crosses the floor with a click of heels and slides the flower off his hand, holding it by the stem. It flops over immediately—it's meant for hanging, not holding—but she lifts it to her nose and inhales nonetheless. It smells like wool, of course, not flowers, but she smiles and curls her hand around it like the two-dollar keychain is something to be cherished.

And then, to his surprise, she loops it around her own pinky and curtseys.

For a moment, he's glad for the dim light and the stubble, because it hides the heat that rises up his neck and into his cheeks.

She opens the door and steps half-outside before he manages to find his voice. "Goodbye, Miss French," he calls.

"Goodbye, Mister Gold. And please," she says, "call me Belle."

He smiles and repeats the name, and she closes the door behind her with a wave and a wink.

When she leaves, he sits down on his workbench stool with pattern paper and a pair of scissors.

When the building across the street casts a shadow through his front door, he looks up at the slanted roof and wonders how much a pair of skylights would cost.

* * *

**A/N: **

****Prompt by chippedcupofchai. this is for you, darling. :)


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